After spending the last month reading list after list making SEM predictions for 2011 I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring. When you truly look at predicting anything, the best case scenario is you’re right and the worst case scenario, well at least you made an effort. So, without further ado, here are my top 7 SEM predictions for 2011:

1. Above the Fold Content Becomes Less Crucial

One of the biggest things to take away from the infographic craze is that users are willing to scroll if you have engaging content. Virtually every mouse has a scroll feature; create amazing content so I want to use it.

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2. HTML5 and CSS3 Will Begin to Go Mainstream

The general population is afraid of change. Most tech people are early adopters and embrace change. Now we just need the people building sites for clients that are still using IE6 to let them do it the right way. Listen to Smashing and start using HTML 5 and CSS3 today.

3. The Death of Foursquare: As big players integrate location-based services better, the smaller pioneers will fade.

Let me start by saying I’ve never been into letting people know where I’m at so they can go to my house and kidnap my dog while I’m out drinking. Therefore, I may not be the authority on any this issue. However, I do hate having to juggle four different apps in order to let everyone know what I’m having for dinner, where I’m having it, that I just became the Mayor and that I checked in to save 20% on appetizers.

4. Google’s Disdain for RSS Will Continue to Grow

With rumors already swirling about Google moving resources away from Google Reader, it’s likely that support for RSS will fade overall. Personally, I used to be into RSS as it’s an excellent way to keep abreast to the latest news and industry blogs, however that all went away when Twitter became my professional social vehicle and Facebook became my personal social vehicle. Using Twitter and using it right helps to filter out all the fluff and only read content that is valued by people who know more than I do.

5. Blekko Will Become an Important FREE Tool for SEO Professionals

Blekko has already made efforts to supply SEO data to users. I think the next step in the process is to allow the data to be exported and manipulated. Stay Tuned…

6. Local Search Will Drive More Customers to Brick & Mortar Stores

Yelp reported that in December of 2010 35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a mobile app. Please take into account that this number doesn’t even include the people who go directly to the site through their mobile browser instead of using the app. People are searching locally and on the go because they want to spend locally. Looking at Google’s shift towards local content only reinforces the fact.

7. Customer Reviews Will Take Center Stage

One of the biggest obstacles working with companies that are just now jumping on the local bandwagon is that it’s difficult to get an influx of reviews. As local businesses begin to optimize for local search, expect to be asked to review a business more and more as you’re walking out the door with your lunch.

In the end, there were a million different predictions I could have thrown out there. Check back next year and we’ll see how I did.

Many HR Firms will give you advice on how to hire. You’ve “Googled” and probably picked the best questions or suggestions out of the top “five things to know about hiring” and went about your merry way interviewing candidates. Did it work? Did you get the very best candidate? Or perhaps it might not have worked out. Was it unclear expectations? Not enough information obtained from the interviews? Were you unable to compare between the final candidates and make a good decision?

Formic is in the process of looking to add another person to our tight knit group. Obviously each of us on the “hiring committee” has our own preferences and wishes for our new team member. We thought it would be interesting to share our process, and the types of candidates we have encountered throughout our hiring process. As the unemployment rate for Oregon reaches 11%, the candidate pool has increased, and there are so many talented candidates out there. How do we sort through the tremendous amount of response to find that “perfect Formic employee”?

For this task, Formic has developed our own “top five things for the interview process“. These are pretty common sense rules to work by, and have evolved over many years and candidates interviewed.

1. Telephone Interviews or Email Questions.

Have a few basic questions ready, this will help you discover from your candidate pool who you want to bring in for the real deal. In this current job market, the pool is big. Formic had over 300 replies to job postings, and from that point there was serious vetting to be done. Telephone interviews helped us determine who was closest to our “prospective candidate” profile. This saves you TIME since there is no set time to the phone interview. It can be as long, or as short as you deem necessary.

2. Have a set of questions ready for the interview (phone or meeting).

This allows you to develop a quantifiable list to compare candidates to each other based on the day to day activities of the job, and of what potentially these people will encounter duty wise, and the skills that they will need to have to be successful. How did we reconcile our own ideas and opinions into a group decision and process? We started out by writing our own interview questions and then submitting them to the Formic group. Just that simple process actually helped our own team by learning more about each other, and making us a more tightly bound group. In hindsight, it really was a good team building task! Another suggestion – throw in a bonus question, something that will surprise them and also give you a good indicator of their personality. Don’t just make it about the job, their skills and what they can do for you. Find out who they are.

3. A clear job description, and the skill set required to master the job.

This is a pretty obvious one, but one that small business owners tend to miss. If you aren’t clear on the job, how can you even communicate that and expect your candidates to be able to respond. If you say “bookkeeper”, that isn’t as cut and dried as you might think. Also, if you have expectations and job duties ready to go, and this person fails – you have a clear outline of expectations with no ambiguities to the job. Attached to this job description should be the range of salary, or hourly rate you are willing to pay.

4. Have more than one person interviewing prospective candidates.

Have more than one person interviewing the candidate serves a couple of purposes. One, interviewing is highly subjective and based on a good deal of soft information. So, whenever possible, have at least one other person carefully interview the final candidates for a position. Two, you may be surprised with a fresh perspective.

5. Second Interviews.

You should always conduct a minimum of two interviews. This can give you a fresh perspective of a candidate; they could relax and open up more, interview even better, or possibly worse. Questions asked in the first interview could be answered differently. It’s another opportunity to see the candidate in a new light.

Hopefully some of our experiences can help you in your own interviewing process. We’d also like to hear what works for you. What hasn’t? Because of the current job market conditions and the increased candidate pool, you are going to have to be even more careful to hire the most talented and qualified candidate, not just the most talented job seeker.

Now that your website is optimized and the pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are running on all cylinders, how do you widen the Internet advertising funnel?After all, you spent a small fortune designing your company’s primary lead generator, and it works well. Re-evaluate your marketing mix, and considering these opportunities:

·Smaller static banner ads have their place too, for the right price. Back links from static placements (html outside the ad server) are good for improving organic search engine positioning. And these quick visual messages reinforce other branding campaigns.

·Email Marketing – Communicating to your existing prospects and clients through email is essential for most businesses, but few companies do it well. Email is inexpensive and effective and getting started is easy.

oSign-up for email marketing services through a third party provider like Yesmail. Avoid the free or inexpensive providers who attached their logo to the bottom of your message. This creates brand confusion; you look cheap and less professional.

oAdd two simple fields (name and email address) to your home page for visitors to opt-in.Include a small link to your privacy policy. When new prospects s sign-up they enter your pipeline, increasing overall marketing return on investment (ROI). Email addresses now flow into your marketing database automatically.

oExpand your email list through radio station listeners clubs; they are a wonderful tool and offer audience segmentation by geography and lifestyles. Offer an incentive to join your email list, and capture the qualified leads through a persuasive landing page. Evaluate the station’s email reach and frequency when booking an advertising schedule. Hopefully the station runs its display ads through an ad server for tracking open rates and click-throughs.

oAdditionally, print magazines market to their subscribers through email, and usually allow sponsorship or display banners. Again incentivize the reader.

·Hyper-Targeted Direct Mail – With the new short-run print-on-demand presses that personalize messages in-line, you can target prospects with pin point accuracy. List brokers still sell addresses with names by carrier routes, incomes and lifestyles. Messages should send the prospects to your website for pre-qualification. Yes, highly-targeted direct mail is an excellent Internet marketing tool.

·Video Pre-roll – This media is expensive but effective. A captive audience for 15 or 30 seconds is consuming only your message. Fifteen second spots are preferable because the 30 second ad can create user frustration and a negative value return. Ask publishers for unique users, impressions and CPM, when determining value.

·Mobile Advertising – For event-based marketing and contesting, traditional media providers are building text messaging programs. Use broadcast spots and print ads and include unique but memorable promotional codes for tracking giveaways and contests. Ask your newspaper, television and radio reps about the cost of sponsoring mobile editions. Be aware of the reach and frequency for these new products as they come to market, and negotiate from this perspective.

·Audio Internet Advertising – Consider a schedule of streaming internet ads on the stations that match your demographics and lifestyles. These highly targeted local ads provide your consistent message through sound, another important touch point.The next generation of user generated play lists will allow targeting by demographics and geography, a success for Myspace Radio, Imeem and Lastfm.com.

·Online press releases should not be discounted. Businesswire distributes your business news quickly at a reasonable price. Thousands of publishers—online and off—receive your press release in a usable file format for easy repurposing, widening the prospect funnel. Online public relations is a standard link building tool utilized by search marketers to improve organic listings. Read more about SEO PR and SEM PR.

For more information on internet advertising, contact Royle Johnson at FormicMedia.com.

In fourth quarter 2007, Google kicked-off their local advertising strategy with a symposium for perspective media partners. Representing my former employer Entercom Communications (NYSE: ETM), an operator of 110+ radio stations, I was invited to Google’s Sunnyvale corporate head quarters for two days of meetings and presentations. The Four Seasons hotel room and red carpet treatment were nice, as well as the special events.

Heavy-hitters from a variety of Internet media conglomerates joined the party, listening to hours of Google advertising pitches. Participants included the major yellow page directories, newspapers, television groups, ecommerce sites, large search engine marketing firms, as well as other radio broadcasters.My hunch turned out to be right; the only guy wearing a suit was from television… but that’s another story.

Google’s message was clear: Monetizing local search advertising was an immediate objective for Google, and their tactic was partnering with existing media companies to leverage their sales forces. In all fairness to Google, its strategy made sense and still does. The internal support provided to partners was exceptional. But Google’s revenue goal to receive partner supportwas aggressive. Some attendees from traditional media struggled with the fact that the typical 15 percent agency commissions—the age old advertising agency standard—was not part of the equation.Google wanted to keep the upside without really sharing. It felt like the “partner with us now or miss the bus” scenario.

Traditional media companies, looking to recoup revenue lost to the internet, took the pitch seriously. Web developers and search engine marketing companies like Formic and Anvil Media are projecting strong growth, even in a slow economy. How could these media companies and publishers turn the dramatic shift to Internet media from a negative to a positive?

The most desperate prospects hopped on quickly – the yellow pages directories including juggernaut BellSouth – for example. Now with Google’s help, your yellow pages directory representative may now resell Google Adwords, but has to pass an on-line certification test first.Another yellow pages company will now design and host your website, and provide hundreds of visitors, for just $60 a month (although a twelve month contract is required). That leads to a few key questions: “Where exactly does the traffic come from?” and “What templates can I choose from?” or “Do I get a discount on the phone book print ad?”

Google’s success selling Adwords locally through traditional media partners is not clear. Hearst-Argyle television group also signed on immediately, but additional announcements are difficult to find. Website development and advertising firms, including Adready.com, have become partners.

Probably the most interesting Internet reseller is ReachLocal.com. The venture-backed search engine marketing firm is very aggressive, opening sales offices throughout North America, and the United Kingdom and Australia. Interestingly they also have relationships with the same yellow page directories being courted by Google. ReachLocal.com employs a director selling approach, hiring sales representatives in each local market. Judging by the continual follow-up by a ReachLocal.com recruiter and pleas for referrals, finding good search sales talent is a difficult task.

Yahoo has a large office in Hillsboro, Oregon outside Portland. Before joining Formic Media, I interviewed there.Interestingly Yahoo has targeted the same local opportunities as Google, but through direct sales. Yahoo is proactively telemarketing to small-midsize advertisers, selling search listings and Yahoo advertising opportunities. I like Yahoo’s personalized strategy. Their brand may be damaged in the search and investment industries, but it carries weight with small businesses looking for help.

The direct sales model for local Internet advertising is not new. In the social media space, Myspace.com has been selling an obscene numbers of banner impressions for $5,000 per month. For one large auto dealership, the immediate return was great. Then the reach and frequency taper began and they quickly cancelled.The point is that social media websites have experimented with direct sales also.

Now that local internet advertising has become hot, expect more cold calls from search engine optimization companies, and the publishers directly. They may have familiar names like Yahoo and Super Pages. Some will commoditize search engine marketing and internet advertising. Others have reach issues (not enough targeted unique registered users). Remember that no two visitors are the same. Formic Media is different; instead of cold calling we work on referral and employ a consulting approach.

Experience really counts in the end, especially if your goals and objectives are clear. Hiring a consultant with broad Internet media experience is worth paying for. Formic Media, a search engine marketing (SEM) agency for small and local businesses, is lead by seasoned SEM professionals Kent Lewis and Royle Johnson, are happy to advise clients on implementing a local search advertising campaign that works.Each has 10+ years managing search campaigns for clients following careers in traditional agencies and media. Visit our Web site for more information.

For those of you interested in keeping up on the latest Formic Media news, you can sign up for our email newsletter on our Web site, or visit our social media profiles, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, MySpace and Squidoo. If you’re interested in employment opportunities at Formic Media, feel free to drop us a note via our contact form.

Formic Media was recently formed by the founders of an award-winning SEM agency, Anvil Media, Inc., Formic Media is designed to help businesses grow through optimization of their internet marketing programs. Focusing on small to medium-sized businesses, Formic will offer affordable online marketing campaign initiatives.

This blog is a resource for small businesses wanting to learn more about promoting their business online. A few of the topics discussed will include: